LONDON, ONT.—Tory Leader Tim Hudak and his supporters easily put down the mini-coup that threatened his leadership.

Hudak, 45, who has led the Progressive Conservative Party since 2009, told reporters Saturday that he can get on his real job now: bringing down the minority Liberal government.

“I heard a huge welling of support behind PC members to do exactly that,” Hudak said.

“We are rapidly running out of runway, we’re running out of time … but I know we can do better than this,” he said earlier.

With little fanfare the party members attending the three-day PC policy convention voted down a controversial proposed amendment to the party constitution which called for a leadership review sooner than later.

There were only two supporters of the motion and even they conceded their efforts were in vain.

“This is a huge distraction,” said May Chow, who was the only one of two delegates to speak against the motion before the question was called.

“We need to work together as a unified strong team … so I am urging everybody to say no to this motion and support Tim Hudak as our next premier,” said Chow, a delegate from the Trinity-Spadina riding.

Hudak told reporters later he was “buoyed” by the overwhelming support.

Veteran Tory supporter John Capobianco said the delegates’ support for Hudak “has taken the wind right out of the sails” of the leader’s internal critics.

“Believe me, there is no more appetite for this,” he told the Star.

The result came as no surprise but it did come as a relief to Hudak and his supporters who have had this issue hanging over them for several weeks now. His success at the convention comes on the heels of demoting MPP Randy Hillier for breaking ranks and MPP Peter Shurman for questionable expenses.

But Hudak didn’t give off scot free.

After a somewhat spirited lunchtime speech he made the mistake of taking questions from the floor, some of them rather pointed in regards to his flagging personal popularity.

“In person you are really warm, you are really relatable, but it doesn’t seem to translate well on TV. So what I want to know is how you are going to speak better to voters through the media in the next election?” said one young delegate.

“Good question,” said Hudak, as he tried to laugh it off.

Hudak is often accused of being wooden and seemingly incapable of letting his personality shine through when in the spotlight.

Another delegate asked: “I don’t mean any disrespect but after two years why aren’t (Hudak’s personal popularity poll numbers) changing?”

Hudak has trailed the Liberal and New Democratic Party leaders for some time now in personal popularity and. try as he may, he has not been able to get out of third place.

Liberal MPP Steve Del Duca (Vaughan) said the question of Hudak’s leadership may have been answered, but he added the public is no further ahead as to what the Tories have up their sleeves.

“There is nothing about the health-care workers they want to fire, nothing about the education workers they want to fire, nothing about the elimination of full-day kindergarten, nothing about hitting seniors and students because of the elimination of tax credits and grant that are in place already,” he said.

“I’m not quite sure what Mr. Hudak and his team are trying to hide. I think it is pretty clear there is a hidden agenda here and I think that’s troubling.”

As it turned out, Hudak was very clear in his lunchtime speech about his dislike for unions, suggesting they are the root of all evil.

“All you need got to do is look down the 401 about 200 kilometres to Detroit, Mich. There you saw a corrupt government that got too cosy with the big government unions. They signed contracts they knew they couldn’t afford and they hollowed out their manufacturing sector. That sound familiar to anybody?” he said.

Hudak said he learned to take the unions on from former Tory premier Mike Harris, who was at the convention. Hudak was a member of Harris’ government.

“We repealed the NDP job-killing labour legislation and stood up to the special interests and show some backbone and stood up for ordinary, hardworking taxpayers again,” he said.

Hudak said that if and when the election happens the Tories will be up against the NDP, the Liberals and the Working Families Coalition, a group of public and private unions that support the Liberals and have been effective in knocking the Tories off stride.

“They will try every trick in the book. They will try to divide us. They will spend millions of dollars in the negative attack ads … we know why they want to do this, because under a Tim Hudak PC government their turn at the public trough is coming to an end,” he said.

Hudak stated his message to unions and the opposing political parties: “I will not blink, I will not hesitate, I will not falter. I will get the job done and build a better province of Ontario.”

Like Harris, Hudak said his government would target the union leaders while wooing front-line workers to the Tory cause.

One delegate even asked him why he is picking a fight with unions instead of keeping his mouth shut.

“There is an old school of thought for that: ‘Be nice to the alligators so they eat you last.’ That’s not the path I am going down,” Hudak said.

Del Duca described Hudak’s speech as the same “rhetoric that has repeatedly led Ontarians to reject his divisive leadership.”

“Tim Hudak wholeheartedly embraced Mike Harris and the failed PC record from the ’90s. Ontarians lived through Harris-Hudak cuts, downloading, and neglect and they don’t want to go back,” he said.

“Make no mistake, the PC Party is deeply divided over Tim Hudak’s shaky leadership. Why should Ontarians have any confidence in Tim Hudak if he can barely convince his own party and caucus he has what it take to lead the province?”

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